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Retro Review: Volcano (1997)

1997 gave us two volcano movies – Dante’s Peak and the accurately named Volcano starring Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, Don Cheadle, and a seismometer.

The Plot – Per IMDB: A volcano erupts in downtown L.A., threatening to destroy the city.

The tagline for Volcano: It’s hotter than hell. I wish I was making this up.

That’s a pretty accurate description. I guess the LA earthquake movies got tiring after a while. You can mix it up a little by having hot lava running through Tinsletown. It doesn’t get much scarier than that plastic surgery melting all over LA.

The Set Up – TLJ works for The Office of Emergency Management and it’s not exactly what he does. Although having Don Cheadle work in your office makes it seem like a cool job

After what Californians believe to be an earthquake, three construction workers are burned to death. The one surviving worker tells them “They burned up……hoooooot” before he passes out. TLJ and his sidekick go underground to discover dead rats and hot steam bellowing through underground LA. TLJ emerges and loudly request someone find him a “scientist”. I think he needs to be a little more specific about his request. What if he got a food scientist?

There are location/time stamps throughout the film that serve no purpose. Every time the texts showed up, it made that annoying typewriter sound.

Enter Anne Heche as Dr. Barnes. Coincidentally, she’s the exact scientist TLJ needed – a veteran seismologist. In related news, there are way too many shots of the seismometer in this movie. There a ½ dozen useless shots of the needle vibrating on graph paper.

Right after TLJ treats Dr. Barnes like a silly kid when she mentions a volcano, Dr. Barnes and her nosey scientist friend travel underground to see what killed the construction workers when all hell breaks loose. There’s a massive earthquake/eruption that cooks nosey scientist friend like a marshmallow over a stove. Side note: Dr Barnes never mentions her friend was killed. Not once. It literally never comes up in the movie. They must’ve had a fascinating relationship.

It looks like Dr. Barnes was right; there IS a volcano in the middle of LA. How will LA survive?

The Eruption – TLJ and his daughter are driving right by the volcanic epicenter right as its erupting. Potholes catapult in the air, volcanic rocks sound like bombs dropping, and there’s a lighting cloud that resembles Zeus hot-boxing in his car. TLJ calmly drives through this nightmare in order to help save people.

One of the film’s most hilarious scenes: Dr. Barnes’ oxygen tank is stolen by a looter. I assume it’s a great thing to loot in the middle of a volcanic eruption if you’re going to be looting.

TLJ proves to be the worst dad in the world leaving his daughter alone in the car 30ft from the lava pit while he goes and talks to strangers. I hope somebody checked the neglect box on his CPS petition.

Meanwhile the volcano continues to erupt and LA only has TLJ, a scientist, and prayer fighting to keep it safe.

The Ridiculous – This film spans the gamut of ridiculousness for the last 30 minutes. Here a few of the insane things that happened.

There’s a shot of car floating down the lava river like an inner tube.

The black guy v. white cop moment is a 1990’s movie staple. An argument leads to the cop trying to take the black guy downtown in the middle of the disaster. It’s not like there isn’t anything serious going on. Just leave everyone and go book this guy for talking too much. At one point the black guy says “I’m going to be the volcano version of Rodney King”. The two eventually work together and make up, and give each other the ‘you’re not a bad guy’ look. Oh 90’s.

The volcanic train escape challenges everything I learned about physics and volcanoes. Stan rescues the conductor from a train trapped in the tunnel only to find it engulfed in flames. Stan grabs the conductor, jumps in the lava, lets out a Spartacus scream, throws the man to safety, and sinks into the lava Terminator 2 style. The train was literally melting. How did he even get out of there?

The film cuts right to TLJ’s signature moment when he opens up a map and says “Listen up people” before telling everyone what to do. This made me think of two things: Is TLJ contractually obligated to use maps in his films? Why doesn’t TLJ have an endorsement deal with Google Maps?

The solution they came up was to build a lake of lava, using concrete blocks and cars, and use all the water in LA to cool it down. I doubt this could even work but I’m no scientist. And where did all those concrete blocks come from?

The pool of lava plan doesn’t work so they decide to blow a trench that will funnel the lava to the ocean. Oh no, the lava is heading to the hospital with all the people in it? Now they have to blow up a parking structure to block the lava flow. Somehow TLJ’s daughter and wandering kid end up in the building that’s going to be blown up. TLJ races are over just in time to do what exactly? I don’t’ know but whatever he did worked. Somehow he runs 200 ft in 10 seconds to outrun the explosion. Incredible. TLJ, his daughter, and wandering kid come up from underneath the rubble without a scratch.

It worked! The building fell and the lava flowed to the ocean.

Afterwards, wandering kid tells TLJ “Look at their faces, they look the same” as people stand around covered in ash. Oh 90’s.

Where are they now?

Tommy Lee Jones – Men in Black, US marshals, No Country for Old Men, and Lincoln.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.